


The Balancer's Eyes

by stardustcatharsis



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Drama & Romance, Kylo Ren Redemption, Love Confessions, Moral Lessons, Resistance Member Ben Solo, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 05:16:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15284493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustcatharsis/pseuds/stardustcatharsis
Summary: Kylo Ren discovers the truth of Vader in his castle on Mustafar. Seeing the visions and wrong doings of his grandfather, he chooses to make things right and rescue Rey from execution.He realizes that treason could free him from conflict and defecting could save an entire galaxy and himself.





	The Balancer's Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you guys for suffering through my summaries (which I am total trash at).   
> Have some feelings no one asked for AGAIN.   
> Happy reading!

The moonless night felt empty, save for a smattering of navigational stars peppering the distance ---  _splintered by faint light ricocheting across the expanse as a Resistance ship fleed._  The  _Supreme Leader_ glowered beneath his newly constructed helmet _\- an amalgam of Vader and scraped metals of his own_. They had, of course, run from the reclamation of his army. 

 

His quest to harvest force sensitive beings had been far easier than he imagined, leaving little behind other than charred bodies and begotten memories from the survivors of the Empire. Those ashes stayed close in his quarters, reminding him of his triumphs. 

 

 The ache inside of him consumed the terrain, igniting a volatile aura with each step he took through the rocky formations. All of the creatures seemed to evaporate from his vision and preferred the burning rivers of magma to being murdered by this predator. 

 

There was so much  _power,_ so much  _darkness,_ so much of  _his history._ It was palpable. If he wasn't buried beneath his mask, he would surely taste it on his tongue.  _Mustafar_ was laden with memories that cried within the Force itself. It was his sanctuary from the girl. He couldn't feel the light chasing him through the expanding darkness. 

 

Inocolating as it was,  _Kylo Ren_ wound himself up the jutting hills and crumbling facade of the black castle. It was the first time he had ventured to the Sith Lord's kingdom on his own. Snoke had showed him this place. He had known it like Rey had known of Skywalker's refuge. The scavenger's name twisted in the pits of his stomach as he clenched a fist in ire. 

 

His mind was burning hot, much like the entirety of the planet. He could feel something pulling him, drawing him in as though a siren had cried out his name. The castle itself cried for him as his blood boiled and his pores sweat beneath his plated armor. 

 

It was the first time that he felt true fear for the sins of his grandfather. When his gloved hand pressed against the oily black controls to open the entrance. Ren basked in the size of the palace as though he had come  _home._ It wasn't congruent with the same home Rey and his mother had been privy to, but it felt like _his_. 

He swallowed.  _Ben_ was being stamped out with each step, he reminded himself. No mother, no father, no uncle, temple or  _girl_ could pry this moment from his fingers. The Force had a will of its own and did not fight him as the door hissed open. 

 

Breathing was an afterthought. As all of the oxygen purged from his lungs, Ren fell to his knees with the weight of his body crushed against the reflective marking. When his senses came rushing back like electricity scorching the desert, he raised his head. 

 

_Vader_ was everywhere. Every surface was covered in the ghosts of his fingers, his labored breathing, the howling mechanical voice that cut through the back of Ren's mind.

 

It was maddening. 

 

Cautiously, Ren rose to glide across the floor towards the vast veranda. He felt at ease in a way he hadn't elsewhere. It was a strange complacency he found in the awe of it all. His hands pressed against the glass, watching the winding red rivers bubble and carve new veins out of the earth around them. 

 

The stars seemed dim in comparison to how brightly the lava shined, leaving a smear on the night. This is what  _nothingness_ felt like. It was the feeling that haunted the misfiring parts of his brain, and the listlessness of a young man trying to find his own path ---  _the_ _true path._

Ren absorbed this energy as it somehow guided him through the chamber, past the throne his fingers grazed as he wound down to the bottom level of the castle. 

 

Something called to him there. Ren hesitated in removing his helmet, but he did so out of respect for his grandfather, the part of his lineage he pined for. 

 

The helmet was placed on a velvety cloth that ran the length of the room, held up by jutting stone. He slicked his hands across his face, half hoping that the scavenger  _would_ miraculously appear and wash away the newfound confusion desperately trying to escape him. He couldn't see past the fading light that flickered weakly on a large door. It stilled him as he delved deeper into the stairway. 

 

Ren closed his eyes. He could see beyond time, beyond who he was, what he is, and all of the molecules that existed within his flesh. There was so much sorrow radiating from the metal door and what laid behind it. He was  _alone._

He could feel that, too. 

 

This was a place that Rey could not have followed, even though she had betrayed him thrice. He clenched his jaw as he spat. She still plagued him just as much as his father. It made him wretch as he violently slammed the control panel as it whined. 

 

He had every right to be there. It belonged to  _him. He was the rightful heir, the Prince, the Supreme Leader that would not fail._

Yet, as he stepped into the small room,  _quiet_ consumed him. It was like everything in the universe stilled and his own thoughts were nothing but static thrumming in his ears.

 

His dark eyes watered with emotion. The tumult raising in his throat like bile sent him to the center of the sarcophagus. He removed his glove, placing it as it weary shook upon the top of the embossed tomb. 

 

The light was nothing more than a silvery glow from the corners of the ceiling. It draped across his face like the moon, had it been able to have ever crept inside the chamber. 

 

Ren relaxed, staring within a tiny glass circle at the ashes spread beneath the lid. A fragment of stained glass and dried flowers lay with in it, and he flinched. 

 

_There was someone there._

Instinctively, he reached for his saber. His heart wild in his throat. There had been nothing there but the dead. The Force seemed to flee from this place, yet here he stood  _afraid. Alone. A child beneath his facade._

"It's intrusive, you know? You shouldn't be meddling with the dead. It only leads to trouble and things you could never even imagine." 

 

A disembodied voice said. One he didn't recognize. Ren ignited the saber, turning cautiously, tactfully towards the place where he heard  _it._

_It felt like death and destruction culminated in one place._ It was a crushing weight that strangled him. For a moment, he glanced outside of the room. There was nothing but the faint glow of the lava reflecting on the window panes. 

 

"You remind me of your mother. She was fiery when she was young." 

 

It was then Ren realized that the softly spoken voice became whole, and full with resolve. It was  _him._ The saber dropped to the floor as the Supreme Leader threw himself upon his knee, quivering with a myriad of inexplicable emotion. He had waited his entire life to  _see,_ to  _hear,_ to  _exist_ with Lord Vader. 

 

"Bowing to me is no better than bowing to Snoke, to the Empires that came and went." He said quietly. 

 

The Supreme Leader stared at the Spector through a forest of black curls. His scar burned as he noticed the mirror of it on his grandfather's face. He looked young, strong jawed, and tall. He was a statuesque creature with long features and dusty hair that cradled his face. It wasn't  _Vader._

"I want to know your power, grandfather. I am so lost. I have begged for your presence. I have pleaded with the Force for you to appear to me and show me the true path --  _just like the darkness intended."_ Kylo's voice echoed with voracious hunger. It was like everything he had ever wanted to say fought to come spilling from his mouth. 

 

Anakin frowned slightly as his fingers slid across the glass of his coffin, ignoring the boy's words. He stared at the stained glass inside and stared longingly at it as though he could conjure Padme from his memories. 

 

"This glass is all that the darkness gave me. I was weak, and I was a fool to believe that there was greater power than that of  _balance."_

Anakin stepped closer towards the man still curled in prayer position. Glorifying the evils of man was not the way of the Force, nor of the pathway to redemption. Kylo decompressed, allowing his composure to climb across his features. The glowing hues of the ghost seemed to dissipate, leaving behind a man with eyes  _Ben_ had seen before. 

 

His mother's, his uncle's. 

 

"Do you want to see what I have done, Ben?"

Anakin asked, staring through the frightened man. He smirked slightly, knowing that his mind crawled over his own wrong doings. 

 

"Grandfather, please let me help you." Ben said raising from his knee. He stood a little taller than Anakin, who peered on with admiration for his grandson. It was wrought with a sadness that was familiar to him. The same deathly wilt that covered Padme. 

 

"They never told they, did you? About Luke, what he did for me?" Anakin asked, raising a hand to trace the scar that ran along Ben's face. It was a cold feeling, far more frigid than of Hoth, of Starkiller Base. 

 

The boy couldn't respond with a satisfactory answer. His time was limited, he knew this. The magnitude of this one moment outshined the expanse of his life as though it had been meaningless until now. His eyes slicked with brackish moisture. It didn't fall, though it wanted to. 

 

Anakin knew it had been a surprise to Ben that they were two sides of the same coin. He could see it in the depths of his eyes. When Ben learned of the rise and fall of the Chosen One, he was quiet.

 

Anakin had placed a hand upon Ben's face, covering his eyes from the world around him. Everything crumbled as memories flooded through his mind at an alarming rate. What felt like hours, happened in the snap of a finger. It was like an entire lifetime contained in the fragment of a second.

 

He saw the slave child, the Masters, the Council, the evils lurking amongst them. He heard voices from distant stars, saw planets disappear and the dark eyes of a Queen that died as Vader emerged from the darkness. 

 

The eyes of Obi-wan cut through him. The sound of Padme pleading sent a shockwave rolling through Ben's entire body. Anakin drew his fingers tighter as the madness began to consume Ben.

 

Rey fluttered through his mind amongst it all. The  _Supremacy_ and its aftermath all intertwined with the past, the present, and small glints of a future without  _himself._

A gasp ripped through the boy as he saw himself as a child being coaxed by a decrepit creature from the Unknown Regions. He saw his mother as a diplomat, his father's frozen body. All of it. 

 

When Anakin lifted his hand, Ben tumbled upon his hands. He stared at the translucent man as he wept in the confines of the tomb. Everything inside of him was gone. The the holocaust of jedi, younglings, wearing the ashes of the slain --- much like his own cast of ashes he cherished --- it all culminated to the one thing he yearned for. 

 

_Padme. Peace. Luke. Leia. To live._

"You say that you long for power and the truth," Anakin said sternly, his voice more powerful. "You are a part of something that you cannot control, you do not get to decide your fate any longer. The  _Force_ will show you. I destroyed the Empire for my son, not for it to be raised from the ashes."

 

His eyes were fearsome, flickering with a flurry of color Kylo had heard about from his Masters. There was a darkness in Anakin that would never be cleansed. His hands still bled the same. He was unclean. 

 

"These hands will never hold what I love." 

 

The power in his voice made Kylo tremble. It was so magnetic to hear. He could listen all day to the sound of his solid timbre quelling his inner demons. 

 

It broke his heart like Ben had broken his mother's. Shame, perhaps, cycled through his conscious. 

 

"The galaxy  _needs_ order." Kylo said, gritted his teeth. He contained his emotions the best he could, but realized that part of him began to die. 

 

Anakin looked towards the back wall, littered with Imperial insignia. "The galaxy will have order when you stop running from the very thing you are and hold on to your other half. You are like me in more ways than you can imagine, Ben."

 

"I have spent many nights dreaming of those words," he said softly. 

 

"You shouldn't wish for the things I've done. This existence is not what you desire. You will always crave more and more lies to fill a neverending void." 

 

Anakin felt the Force calling for him. He was at peace with his crimes ---- accepting what he could not undo, but never at peace without the family he lost. His eyes lowered and he flashed a melancholy smile. The despair of it far too great for even Ben to comprehend. 

 

"Look at me. Look at my face. The Skywalker blood bleeds in you. You  _bleed_ for the demons whispering in the darkness. But there is so much more than  _this._ The Empire was nothing without a Queen. It was nothing without what I lost, Ben. Saving your soul isn't up to the  _girl."_

Ben felt his smooth hands crawl along his shoulder, holding eye contact for a moment before he was gone without a trace. 

 

Kylo had experience a great many things, but he wasn't prepared for the end to be in a palace of darkness, sitting in the middle of hell itself. 

 

He stole a rose from the tomb. It had long since died and wilted, but it belonged to his grandmother. Holding it close, he pressed it into the breast of his robes and retrieved the helmet as his mind went blank. 

 

It was a chokehold of virtue that stung him. Upon the peak of the formation, outside of the castle walls he stood holding the crude helmet in his hands. Everything he had known was tethered to the scraps and faulty soldering. His own fault lines cracked his face, his torso, his arms. 

 

In a fit of rage, he threw the helmet into the fiery mouth of the river, which was eager to swallow it whole. His eyes turned towards the sky once more. The stars flickered far beyond his vision as the heat beaded sweat across his brow.

 

Each layer of his armor fell to the ground, leaving him in nothing more than his tunic and trousers. The cathartic wave of light drew color in his mind. It was but a faint heart beat drawing him out of his enclosure. 

 

Life, death, everything around streamed like a holo-film. With each step down the step incline, he saw another memory of Anakin. He flinched, watching him crawl along the sooty embankment covered in embers. 

 

Further still, he heard Obi-wan's  war-cry like it was a serenade. He inhaled the sulphuric air and bit as his lip as he wandered back to his ship alone. 

 

The creatures were nowhere to be found. His own will snapped in two. There was that familiar emptiness he knew all too well as he hunkered down in the Silencer. 

 

"Forgive me, Grandfather." Ben swallowed, brushing away the perspiration. He searched for an answer deep within himself as his eyes stayed transfixed on the castle. 

 

Take off at been an endeavour. The unwillingness to leave was wrought with a foul taste and urgency to wash himself in the waters of Naboo, bathe in the suns of Tatooine, and scale the walls of Alderaan's lush vines. 

 

None of it was possible, but the new found resilience and  _power_ dredged from the foundation of the castle, had given him the desire to save what he loved. 

 

A disturbance crippled him. Something was amiss. It was faint, but saw  _her_ in his vision. Discerning it from reality was almost impossible. Panic gripped at him as rage swelled in his bones. 

 

_Today was the day that the past would die._

 

                                      _xxx_

Shackled by her wrists, Rey stood on the platform in front of thousands of solders. Each white mask hiding the frightened eyes of men and women stripped of their families. They all listened to the devil that stood on the podium, as though his dictation was law. 

 

She watched planets be expunged. Their histories dissolving into a vacuum of dust and particles to drift into the valleys of blackholes and galactic waste. Her jaw locked tightly as General Hux grinned sheepishly at her. She wanted to spit. Though her dignity would not allow it. 

 

She surrendered herself yet again. This time there was no one to save her. The Resistance was far too precious for this and the last flittering bit of hope was not worth allowing them all to perish. 

 

Her dark eyes scanned the ghosts and wondered if they knew what they had caused. Defect Imperials told her their stories over the years, and she imagined that the First Order was much of the same. 

 

Phasma stood on mechanical limbs, crushed by the weight of her breathing apparatus as she prepared her execution squadron. This was a holo event. 

 

_The Scavenger scum murdered in order to spare the galaxy of terrorism._

That's what they would say. That's what Hux would say, anyway. She searched her feelings until the faintest bit of Ben rippled through it. Her heart leapt into her throat as she looked across the white expanse for any sign of him. 

 

Closing her eyes, she felt the same silence consume her as she had on Ahch-to. That very first time she shot at him, she hadn't expected to crave his closeness. Despite everything that came before, after, in between --- Rey had  _hoped_ if nothing else, that she could catch a passing glimpse of the man. 

 

_She loved him._

Even as the Execution Squadron came and tethered her wrists high above her head, as though she was to be burned. She forgave him for being tangled in this web. 

 

She forgave him for his mother, his father, for his uncle. She forgave him for his sins, as though she had the power to change them. For a moment, as the propagandist speech began to bellow and the collective _"hoorah"_ came, she believed she  _felt_ him again. 

 

Rey thought of her life on Jakku. Her meaningless life as a scavenger trying to survive. She could survive a lot of things, but  _this_ was something different entirely. They had numbed her abilities with resistant shackles, stripped her of saber and left her nearly bare. 

 

It was cold, like Starkiller had been. The snow seemed to stretch on forever. Yet this time, there was no one to  _protect_ her from her own will, and the  _Force_ had not stopped her. Luke hadn't come in a vision, nor any other of her ghostly masters. 

 

This was a humane decision to preserve her  _family_ and their families. This was the result of the galaxy crying at her feet begging for absolution. 

 

This was what it meant to resist. 

 

Rey raised her head high, feeling her arms aching as the fire in her nerves spread.  _Hope_ lived as long as the survivors had time to destroy the base. She hung on that solitary hope as the sound of footsteps grew louder and louder behind her. 

 

The young Jedi prayed that her students were safe. She prayed for Leia as she lay on her death bed, hoping that she would die knowing the Resistance lived on, even if it was but a smoldering ember. 

 

Phasma grabbed the girl's face in between her metal fingers. " If I cannot have FN 2187, I will  _gladly_ make you suffer for his sins."

 

Rey hissed. Her eyes narrows as she wriggled, futily escaping Phasma's grasp. " You're barely human because of him. He won." 

 

"Traitorous scum!" Her rattling voice howled as her hand struck the girl. 

 

Rey suppressed a cry, challenging her with a cold stare. Hux applauded, gesturing towards the women. The Troopers called battle cries in unison before stamping their feet until it thundered. 

 

Phasma kicked Rey's shins, pulling her hair from its singular bind as she walked away. "I don't know why  _you_ were worth the trouble. Watching you die will be very so sweet."

 

The steely glare the girl shot Phasma could have scorched the earth. Time was moving in a frequency of its own, and Rey could feel her chance of survival narrowing. Everything inside of her had dulled and the light within her began to fizzle out. 

 

With the shackles, her power was quelled to nothing but a drizzle instead of a storm. The Phasma took the executioner's ax in her hands ceremoniously and steadied herself behind the girl. 

 

The red cloak spilled over the shoddy refurbished armor-plated uniform she wore, bleeding into the wind. Rey closed her eyes as the ax raised high above her head. 

 

"Any last words?" 

 

Rey swallowed, taking one last look around her. In that moment, she relished the crisp air and how beautiful the snow capped hills looked in the distance. The evening light painted the sky with somber tones. That second felt like eternity. 

 

"I am the Resistance." 

 

She braced herself for a blow that never came. The crunching sound of metal and electrical currents sizzles. Rey began fighting with her binds, but it was futile. 

 

Hux inhaled sharply. " _Supreme Leader!"_ His face smeared with abhorration. His visceral eyes gleamed noxiously. "This rat gave herself up for execution to save the sniveling gutter dwellers of the Resistance. She is worth the spectacle. She has been but a thorn in our sides since you found this snake upon Takodana!"

 

The crackling of his lightsaber sent calm over Rey. Relief consumed her, even if for a moment. The General's voice was so course it chipped away ice from a snowy embankment. 

 

Kylo Ren slid Phasma's body from his saber and stepped upon her as he slowly prowler. His loyalties didn't lie with the First Order, the Resistance, or the rogue factions in between. His eyes were heavy with wanton, bloodshot and crazed. 

 

Hux stared at the face of a man who became an animal. The entirety of his army refused to even breathe. 

 

" _Enough!_ Take her down."

"You are just as much a traitor as that filth!" Hux clenched his jaw in defiance as he militantly turned to his army. "  _You_ murdered our true leader for some Jakku trash, you fucking child." 

 

The army's collective gasp sounded like a knife cutting a wound. 

 

Kylo swung his saber watching the man's expression falter. He knew what he was capable of. He had experienced only a fraction of if. 

 

Instead of freezing Hux in place, his hand swung behind him, crippling Rey's binds. She fell to the ground only to be descended upon by the squadron. She was freezing, struggling to regain feeling in his limbs.

 

Her legs kicked as she was thrown over a man's shoulder. Defiantly, the she felt the rush of the Force growing stronger. Her voice was strangled as she called for Ben. 

 

 

" _These hands will never hold what I love."_

Anakin's voice pierced him. A shiver ran down his spine. 

 

For a moment, he glanced to the girl. There was no time to suppress his adoration, or feel anything other than the blinding light of his freedom. He didn't care, for the first time, of his own well being and waited for her to pull his saber to her. 

 

_"The galaxy needs balance."_ It whispered again. 

 

She had done it several times in combat. Deep down, he had enjoyed it. When it reached her hand, the girl maneuvered to char the men's armor into hissing bits of metal. 

 

As she rolled on the ground, the white clad solders climbed the platform with shocking speed. Rey panicked, feeling the cold air burn her lungs. She side eyed Ben before charging head. 

 

_"I'm surrounded by fear and dead men."_ Again, it came.

Rey's voice was ferocious, cracking with intensity as she screamed blindly. Ben heard the sound of blaster fire and quickly froze it in place. Hux stared him down as he held the blaster in between his fingers. 

 

"This is  _treason,_ Ren! All of this rightfully belongs to me!" He snarled, " _Fire at this traitor!"_

Each step felt slow. Nothing seemed real. Ben dipped down and let the hail of fire burn past him, hitting some of the targets. Rey was struggling. He couldn't take his eyes away from Hux as he dodged weaponless. 

 

Amidst the clamoring feet and dizzying resonance, Ben made a choice. A singular choice that sparked something he had almost forgotten. He clenched his fist, brazenly knocking Hux in the jaw. 

 

"I'll fight you like a man." He gritted, stealing a glance of Rey's inelegant dance between fire. A burst of energy catapulted the stormtroopers across the chasism she created in the boards of the platform. 

 

The general hissed and cawed like an animal, swinging his arms with a candor Ben had never seen in him. When he made contact, his arm was immediately dislodged, leaving him screaming in fetal posturing. 

 

Ben smirked at how easy it had been. The army trickled in closer, and closer. They would defend Hux. With a quick jolt, Ben turned to Rey, fair near cracking her spine as he called his saber ---  _she came along with it._

She crashed into him, panting, sweat drenched and frozen. Her blooded and bruised skin smeared across his chest as he placed a kiss atop her head. 

 

The girl felt  _safe_ there. She closed her eyes for a moment, "Take me to my ship.  _Please. "_

Ben smirked, slashing through bodies as he brought down the pillars of the platform as he stepped through the carnage. The sound of a Tie Fighter squadron surfaced and the fire began to blindly rain.

 

"I need your help. I'll take you to the ship if you bring the Fighter down." 

 

Rey blinked, clutching to him as she watched the bright flashes of light amongst the burning tapestries around them. "I've only heard of stories."

 

Ben howled at the feeling of his arm being shot. He stumbled, still curling his body around the girl's. "  _Do it god dammit!"_

His saber locked in his other hand as he swung it violently at anyone who dared cross him. Rey released him cautiously running away from him. She was chased by the squadron as she climbed a marble pillar that wound just high enough to get a clear view. 

 

When the firing came, she locked her legs tightly around the marble.  _It's just like the destroyer. It's just like home._ She reminded herself. 

 

Her eyes felt heavy and her motions seemed to lose any connection to herself. She was something else entirely as her shaking hand rose above her head. Focusing all of her energy, she ignored the cries below and clenched her fist as she drew it violently down to her side. 

 

She repeated it until the Force manifested within her. Reopening her eyes, Rey  _felt it_.

 

Time stood still as she harnessed the darkness within herself to plummet vessel after vessel to the ground. Ben was thrown back, breaking his fragile arm. He winced, knowing full well between the laser wound and the break, it would be removed. 

 

A laugh erupted from him as he felt Rey's pull. The Force guided his movements towards her as she stumbled down like a rat on a gutter. She noticed his arm and frowned as she watched him kneel. 

 

"Get on me. We don't have time or the strength to do this, Rey. We will die here." 

 

Rey stepped forward, eyes as powerful as her voice. "I am not afraid to die, Ben."

 

He spit blood from his mouth as lungs began to burn. It alarmed her.

 

"Let me be afraid  _for you! I said hold on!"_ He said it again, yelling until she did as she was told.

 

 He handed her the saber and pushed himself through the throngs, feeling the heat of his weapon slice through anyone that came across their path. 

 

She clenched her legs tight on his sides to keep her balance. Each swing felt like someone else guiding the action. As they passed Phasma's body, the girl finally spat on her and willed the ax into her hand. Flicking it on, she decapitated soldier after soldier as they made their way to the _Falcon._

Ben stumbled as he made his way onto the dilapidated ramp, barely out running his former army. He shucked Rey to the ground, jostling his body on weak feet towards the captain's seat. 

 

Rey followed watching him overtake the cockpit with an expertise akin to his father.  _Flip. Flip. Clank. Gone._

The terrain disappeared and painted the stars across their vision. 

 

                                     xxx

The feeling of the mechanical arm was an adjustment. Biting his tongue and swallowing his pride, he softened his glare. The medic droid blipped and calculated how well it had grafted to his nerve endings before leaving him alone. 

 

It wasn't exactly a holding cell, but it felt like one. He dreamt of Anakin again. It unraveled more and more of the enigma behind the mask of Vader, more and more of his own. 

 

He reclined on the cot that was far too small for his large body. The smell was familiar and he drowned in it the musty corners of the room. There had been many eyes on him as though he was a spectacle.

 

Ben swallowed, feeling strength filling his body. He could feel Rey's presence on the base, and knew she would eventually come to him --- or he would go to her. His pride hoped for the first option, but his humility chose the latter. 

 

A nervousness rattled through him as caught his reflection in the backside of a rusting, warped arm of a lighted dock. He saw Anakin there; The scar, the weight of his eyes, the sound of his voice rippling through him like the rain. 

 

Then it was still again. These fragments propelled his lethargic walk towards the hall. The Resistant found him enough of threat to have segregated him from the rest of the unit, but he could hear their voices echoing as he reached the end of the infirmary. 

 

Ben had no weapon on him. Rey had probably taken it. Better there than with him, he supposed. The war was far from over but his attachments became as clumsy as the metal fingers opening the doors. 

 

A foul taste lived in the back of his throat. The idea of eating was almost revolting as the smell permeating from the mess hall. He looked on with curious eyes at how _the other side_ lived. 

 

Despite knowing that they would be attacked, a fact that they were prepared for at any given time, warmth radiated from their passions and guided their decisions. He stood out like a sore thumb amongst them. 

 

He was the ghost here. No doubt his mother had made arrangements for him to be indoctrined, but despite his departure from the First Order, he would not assimilated again. 

 

Idly, Ben felt the prying eyes of the rebels on him. They steered cleared, observing his every move. They fell silent when he passed, and even more so when he reached the hangar. Blaming them for their opinions of him would have been unjust as his own actions that made them enlist in this godforsaken place. 

 

The Falcon was there off in the corner. He made a face at it and searched the littered X-wings and smaller, more practical craft. Still godforsaken, he chided miserably to himself. 

 

As he wove through the crafts, a few of the pilots nodded in acknowledgement. He brought an integral piece of the Resistance back to them, destroying a First Order base and some of it had spread amongst the people in their dirty suits. It was the only reason he was alive despite all that he had done. 

 

Inside the ship, he found Rey. She wrapped herself in a blanket as she read through the Jedi texts. 3PO's translations were crude, but she could manage with what she had. Ben crinkled his nose. He could feel her exhaustion bleeding into him with each step.

 

Their bond thrummed through the quiet, and she turned to him. Her eyes wavered with some sort of emotion he hadn't seen for sometime. Ever since the adrenaline wore off and the exhaustion of it had overtaken him, he knew she has suffered far more. She looked weak, worn down with bags under her eyes. Channeling that much energy and sheer will could have killed her, and he felt remorse for that. 

 

Rey could read his thoughts if she wanted to, but the sallow look on his rigid features said it all. She closed the book, swiveling the seat around to face him, adjusting the covers on her legs. 

 

Her eyes fell to his arm as his foreign fingers moved. It hadn't been covered by false-skin yet and the stench of bacta lingered. 

 

"I'm surprised they let you make it this far." 

 

Ben cocked his jaw as he searched for the right words. Her gravity more apparent in the small space. " Not letting you die in front of an entire army on a holo was enough for  _them_ to overlook---"

 

"That was for your mother." Rey blanched, moving a hair from her face. Her bruising and newly mended scar was apparent on her jaw. 

 

He flinched at this. It was unavoidable now.  _She_ was in the back of his mind. It would all be over the second he was trapped in a room with her. One thing about Leia was that she would rather me  _right_ than die _wrong._

"This isn't the correct time, but I suppose there will never be one." He said. 

 

Rey looked down at the floor, her face warm. His closeness brought a familiar rush of heat to her cheeks as she chewed her lip. 

 

" _Kylo,_ I cannot do this now." She sighed, trying to formulate a coherent sentence. Her tone was so soft he could barely hear her, but was overtaken by the sound of it. "I need---"

 

He held his breath, clenching his fists. He knew the truth. He had to say it. Acknowledging it meant the end of it all. 

 

In the cockpit, he leaned down to her. She was unmoving, stern and coarse as she always had been. His dark eyes searched her face and begged for their bond to speak for him.

 

_It didn't._

 

The Force refused. It had to be of his own mind. Losing  _her_ was something he feared, even in the darkest recesses of his existence. Whether or not she realized the magnitude of his desire, he's wants, the urgency of crushing her body to his and holding her, that was something different entirely. 

 

"I was  _Ben_ the moment I stepped on  _my_ ship." 

 

" _Your---"_ Her brows furrowed before her defensiveness deflated. "Your ship?"

 

Ben's mannerisms were awkward in a childish way. It pulled on Rey's heart, which fluttered in quick, staccato beats. It climbed her throat, and she imagined his to be very much the same. His name, his  _real name,_ coming from his own mouth sounded like a song. 

 

"It's a piece of junk but it's had someone to bring out the best in it. Cleaned it up from what I remember it being, honestly." 

 

Rey hesitantly moved a strand of his hair from his eyes, tucking it behind one of his ears. His mechanical hand reached up and covered hers. 

 

It was cold. Their connection not as strong as it had been on Ahch-to, where she felt a live wire puncturing her veins. No, it wasn't until he pressed her palm to his cheek that she felt it again. 

 

She gasped. 

 

"I'm not afraid anymore." 

 

"I'm not either. I will never be what you want me to be. I am a monster, Rey. I have done things that you couldn't imagine." He knelt closer, feeling her body recline to escape the tension. It was predatory, a natural trait he possessed ---  _like his grandfather._

Rey's eyes skimmed over his lips, his clenching jaw and back up to his emotive eyes. The dim light of the cockpit fluttered across his face. 

 

She wanted to protest him, but couldn't. Every time she opened her mouth she couldn't speak. For a girl who made hasty, ill-planned decisions and spoke her mind, she drew a blank more abundant than a map of the Unknown Regions. 

 

Their bond flickered. It pulled her into him. She followed it, feeling a fire growing with the oxygen of each breath. She had run from her own truth for so long that having a moment of solace, even as the war raged on outside of his sanctuary, she still struggled to face it. 

 

Ben smirked, a reminiscent trait of his father. Rey wondered if this was how Leia felt in Han's presence. It was more powerful when there was a calm about him. 

 

"I  _know,_ little scavenger. I've always known."  He whispered, his voice a shaky timbre that sounded as though he could weep. "You've never been alone."

 

Rey's eyes welled with tears. She fell into his chest, inhaling the mixture of his scent and the medicinal salves on his skin. She held him, arms locked around his broad frame. 

 

"I've dreamt of this day since the island. When I was young, I dreamt of you though you were only a voice." She said in earnest. This was a moment she longed for, knowing it would be over within seconds. 

 

There was no doubt in their bond that  _this_ was predetermined. She could not squelch the darkness within herself, or erase it from Ben. Together they could bring  _balance_ to each other and be stronger because of it. 

 

The war had just begun. She had nowhere else to run, and neither did he. Rey pulled away and slid out of the seat. She revealed a spiny metal leg in place of one that had been amputated from the knee down. She stumbled. 

 

Ben felt sick at the sight of it as she gained her footing. It turned out that she had suffered a cauterized wound that burned her flesh so badly it had amalgamated with debris. By the time it was found by the medic it was too late.

 

Rey guided him down the halls, feeling him catch her wrist before she made her way down the ramp. She turned to him standing tall like a creature in the night. His mouth passed over hers leaving her in shock.

 

He ruffled her hair a little and smiled; the first genuine smile in years. Rey gripped his jaw, pulling him down to her. Her lips parted for him as he tasted the light spilling from every corner of her. She consumed him. 

 

When it was over, he exhaled sharply looking up to find the presence he had felt all over the ship, all over the entirety of the base ---  _his mother._

"I should have stayed in bed. I didn't need to come all the way out here to see you pulling stunts like your father." The general quipped, holding herself steady with her cane. She was very ill, but  _this_ was far more important than her condition. 

 

Rey's cheeks bled red. Ben rolled his eyes as his heart clenched in his throat. She was smaller than he ever remembered. His mother carried with her the weight of Vader, and the regal grandeur of a Queen. 

 

"Welcome home son." She said, feeling his heavy arms cling to her. "We can do this together now. I'm sorry, Ben. I'm sorry that I couldn't save you."

 

"I had to save myself. Grandfather showed me balance. His mistakes are not mine to make. I couldn't let Rey die. I couldn't let you suffer my sins."

 

Leia grinned, "Liberty will not die with thunderous applause, Ben. I will be with you always. Lead them through the dark, you know the way." She said softly. 

 

Ben knew she was dying. Her light fading. It was evident in her eyes. Rey steadied him. He carried her back to the infirmary where she passed on into the wavelengths of time and space; lost in a sea of moonlight like she had wanted. 

 

Poe drank in her honor. Finn lit the pyre.  Ben sat in his father's old jacket, stitched back together by Rose's small hands. She was a better sewer than Poe. It was evident by the look of Finn's coat. 

 

There was laughter, tears, silence in the hangar that night. Tomorrow would bring the unknown and Ben felt peace with this. He looked to Rey as she looked at the sky overhead. 

 

The stars connected in a way that brought tears to her eyes. She searched for Ben, outstretching a hand to him as she pulled him close. He wasn't an apparition like the others that came and went. He was human and real and solid. 

 

It would take years of work to change others view of him. That didn't matter. Leia got her wish and hung onto the hopes of him being the child she once knew. 

 

Rey leaned into him. Grieving was a celebration of the achievements and life and death and the growth in between. Yet, Rey couldn't be sad enough to sit amongst the crying faces of the Resistance. She needed to be free for a moment, and it was evident that Ben did as well. 

 

"Without your mask, you're a beautiful person. Without the war, you're just a human with an ability that connects you to everything. I think that makes the Force even more powerful. The balance of it, really." She whispered.

 

Ben kissed the crown of her head. "I don't belong anywhere, Rey. I'm not saved because I came home. I'm not saved because I committed treason." He sighed, watching the moons waxing in the distance as the cool night air swept into the mouth of the hangar. "I want to hold the things I love with my own hands. I've traveled to systems and planets and never found what I was looking for. Taking and taking and taking still nothing i longed for. I waited my entire life to find something, _anything._ Have you?"

 

The girl felt the weight of the Force press upon her as she linked her fingers with his. 

 

"I have." She murmured like the faintest of heart beats. 

 

He looked down at her with soft eyes. He understood what Anakin had meant. 

 

"I think I have too." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
